Monthly Archives: January 2016

The snow is falling and it’s cold outside, so here’s a wee video to keep you occupied.

This is probably my favourite song by Dougie Maclean, “Turning Away”, and I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoy singing it!

My session on Celtic Music Radio on Friday went really well, I hope you were able to tune in. I performed my new song “Please Don’t Take My Smile” alongside “In The Glen, Stan Rogers’ “White Squall” and the song in this video, “Turning Away”. Huge thanks to Celtic Music Radio for having me and to the audio department at Glasgow Caledonian University for making me sound great.

Well, it’s been a while hasn’t it? 2015 I decided to put everything music related on the backburner, as it was a very important year for me…I finally got married! However, I’m now re-booting the musical brain cells.

I have started writing again. It kinda feels like opening a new musical chapter in my life as the music I’m writing is quite different from “Travels”. I blame a shift in musical tastes for this as I have been reacquainting myself with the music of Mike Oldfield, one of my first true musical inspirations.

Although I have written six new songs since “Travels” was released, which I will probably make an EP out of eventually, I am currently writing a mostly instrumental piece. I’ve always loved music that starts with something simple and gradually builds up to a full, beautiful, dramatic climax. Mike Oldfield is of course the master of this type of music, however it’s probably the Treacherous Orchestra’s latest album “Grind” which has planted the seed in my mind.

Although it will never be to the same scale as Treacherous Orchestra or Mike Oldfield, the piece I am writing is inspired by them in that I aim to have a theme running through the music, starting with little instrumentation and building up to something a lot bigger. It is, of course, still in the very early stages. I do have a very rough draft of an opening track, which will be the basis for the rest of the music, but it’s way too rough to even let you hear a sample. I will, of course, be trying to keep it folky and with my own style. I suppose in a way I’ve already dabbled with this type of idea with my recording of “Johnny O’ Braidislee”. There will be songs in it too, but the primary focus will be instrumental.

In saying all of this, I have no idea how this will turn out. These things often grow arms and legs, and in a way, that’s what I want to happen and is how I am writing this new music.

I hope this is enough mystery to keep you interested for now, and I apologise for my lack of communication over past year or so.

My first musical adventure this year will be on Friday, where I will be performing a short set on Celtic Music Radio during their Celtic Connections broadcasts. Be sure to tune in on Friday 15th January from 3pm at www.celticmusicradio.net and across Glasgow on 95FM. I will be performing one of my new songs “Please Don’t Take My Smile” on the show, as well as a few other songs, so I hope you can tune in.

I suppose I can’t finish this email without posting a picture from my wedding! We had an absolutely perfect day, 4 years in the making, followed by an equally fantastic honeymoon travelling around Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City, Montreal and then New York City!